Day or Night Skimming

I've been looking through a few guys members threads and I see that different people skim at different times during the day. Some only skim at night and others during the day and I have mine running 24/7.

What are the benefits of each?
Turning the skimmer off during feeding is fairly straight forward, but I'm sure there many more reasons.

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I've been looking through a few guys members threads and I see that different people skim at different times during the day. Some only skim at night and others during the day and I have mine running 24/7.

What are the benefits of each?
Turning the skimmer off during feeding is fairly straight forward, but I'm sure there many more reasons.

I run my skimmer 24/7. From my experience with running it 12 hours on and 12 hours off (experiment some years ago) , leads to a lot of detritus settling in the sump during the 'off' period. Is that what we want? In my case a no no......

I run my skimmer 24/7. From my experience with running it 12 hours on and 12 hours off (experiment some years ago) , leads to a lot of detritus settling in the sump during the 'off' period. Is that what we want? In my case a no no......

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For sure I get that but does the DSB also need some food to survive. Otherwise the organisms in there die too? We can't allow the DSB to become an overnight dumping site but we also don't wanna skim out all the life.

The other thing I considered was if I were to only skim during the day how would I maintain the Oxygen levels in the tank over night?

How much does surface agitation really diffuse oxygen into the system?
Would I then need an air pump running in the evening?

I've noticed that my current skimmer skims quite a few pods and gogga's. These seem to be nocturnal creatures thus leading me to think that if I skim during day light hours they wouldn't be removed...

For sure I get that but does the DSB also need some food to survive. Otherwise the organisms in there die too? We can't allow the DSB to become an overnight dumping site but we also don't wanna skim out all the life.

For sure I get that but does the DSB also need some food to survive. Otherwise the organisms in there die too? We can't allow the DSB to become an overnight dumping site but we also don't wanna skim out all the life.

What u think?

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Makes sense Pads. But at the same time, remember, not all the water is passing that skimmer, lots of it is 'missed' by the skimmer and is therefore feeding your DSB.

sorry for hi jacking pads i have a stocking over my overflow pipe that goes into the sump and it catches excess food and all the dirt and stuff wich keeps my sump clean and stops splashing.but i wanto know...all that stuff wich is collected in the stocking would the DSB not need that to feed on? or would the DSB still get enough food? i have a huge amount of pods ect and they are all over the place.would that not be a sighn that there is a good balance in the sump?

Depends on...
Is the skimmer before or after the DSB?
What types of coral and or softies you have?

Mine is after. I want excess food to feed the DSB, why starve them, let them eat.
And as I only have softies and leathers, I skim at night. So any beneficial larvae and pods release by the DSB during the day get a ride via return pump to display.

So if you have corals that expand at night, then running the skimmer during the day is better.

Also it helps a lot to have a small circulation pump running in the sump around the skimmer. It keeps things suspended. Check out comments made in this month Tank of the Month. One of the suggestions or pieces of advice given.

Actually I realized that you should have a parallel sump. Overflow should split to two chambers. One a DSB and the other the skimmer. Both chambers then go to return pump. Dallas got this setup, but he split his overflow into 3 lines.

Depends on...
Is the skimmer before or after the DSB?
What types of coral and or softies you have?

Mine is after. I want excess food to feed the DSB, why starve them, let them eat.
And as I only have softies and leathers, I skim at night. So any beneficial larvae and pods release by the DSB during the day get a ride via return pump to display.

So if you have corals that expand at night, then running the skimmer during the day is better.

Also it helps a lot to have a small circulation pump running in the sump around the skimmer. It keeps things suspended. Check out comments made in this month Tank of the Month. One of the suggestions or pieces of advice given.

Actually I realized that you should have a parallel sump. Overflow should split to two chambers. One a DSB and the other the skimmer. Both chambers then go to return pump. Dallas got this setup, but he split his overflow into 3 lines.

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Skimmer before DSB. I suppose a good way to set up is,
1) Overflow - Skimmer - Return
2) Overflow - DSB - Return, and I'd have
3) Overflow - Algae Scrubber - Return. All linking into one common Return Chamber.

This does not solve the problem of the DSB being a detritus trap. Too much flow over it and there's not enough contact time and too little flow means nothing happens...

It seems as though most skim 24/7. But I don't want to adobt a mantra that I cant fully justify from my own experience. I guess its why you ask for advise from the "long in tooth". IMO I think this needs some more thought.
Would it be so neccessary to reseed the DSB and add fresh LR if we weren't stripping the life from our reef before it has time to sustainably populate...
In the wild nothing apart from predators removes life from the reef. Does a skimmer do it faster? Especially a strong one that can cope with our bio loads???

IMO & something not mentioned 24/7 is best because I don't believe in turning pumps on and of if they aren't pulsating pumps. Skimmer pumps are expensive and it will reduced their lifespan. Even when feeding I run it, but off for an hour or so when adding Prodibio and when cleaning so in total once a week +-. Also skimmers are one of the best forms of oxygenation and with Escoms reliability one never knows when Murphy might strike!

[SIGPIC][/SIGPIC] 'ALLO "ALLO.... listen carefully, I will say this only once........

IMO & something not mentioned 24/7 is best because I don't believe in turning pumps on and of if they aren't pulsating pumps. Skimmer pumps are expensive and it will reduced their lifespan. Even when feeding I run it, but off for an hour or so when adding Prodibio and when cleaning so in total once a week +-. Also skimmers are one of the best forms of oxygenation and with Escoms reliability one never knows when Murphy might strike!

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Good point, I can't say I accounted for the weathering of the pump with all the on/off cycles. Unless the skimmer was gravity fed but then it would run 24/7 in any case. Maybe I'll have to work on a skimmerless system... One day when my tank is big and I've got an auto water change system running. Thank for the input guys